Peacemaker shares Iraqi Christians' pain and fear.

--by Peggy Gish

Even with occasional sounds of gunshot or mortar fire in the distance, my first four days back on the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) team in Baghdad had been fairly calm. I had been adjusting to the increased precautions the team now took, and still felt emotionally distant from the violence the Iraqis were experiencing. On Sunday, Aug. 1, that changed.

Doug Pritchard and I were taking part in a Chaldean worship service in our Karada neighborhood when we heard the blasts of two bombs, exploding outside two nearby churches. Like the Iraqis around us, we were stunned and shaken. There had been some violence against Christians, but this is the first time Iraqi churches had been targeted since the invasion. Out on the street, we stopped to get information about the other churches and listen to Iraqis share their fear and grief. A woman standing at her gate motioned for us to come in.

Her young adult daughter spoke English, and she told us the story of how her father, a Christian, was recently killed because he sold liquor. They were still mourning his death. They had not attended their church this evening because they were afraid they might be attacked if they went out of their home. "Now our church has been bombed, and I don't know if my friends are dead or alive," she agonized. Her mother added, "Now Christians may have to leave Iraq. There is no safety here now. What are we going to do?" Their world seemed to be crumbling around them.

The mother bravely held her emotions in, but when we kissed each other in the usual farewell manner, she began to cry. I had been feeling sad for them, but now it touched me on a deeper level. I felt more keenly her pain as a wife and mother. We stood there for a short time, hugging and kissing each other and allowing the tears to flow. We embraced as Iraqi and American and as woman and woman.

Earlier in our conversation I had been thinking that at such a time we North Americans had nothing to offer them, and she may have thought the same. But now in this moment, in the midst of violence and feelings of hopelessness, we were given an unexpected gift. I didn't have to know how our team might respond to these new acts of violence. I didn't have to try to do something for her or know what would result from this time together. The protective barriers of our hearts were broken down, allowing us to hold each other closely in our pain and fear.

--Peggy Gish, a member of the Church of the Brethren at New Covenant Fellowship, Athens, Ohio, returned to Baghdad in late July. She has spent 11 months in Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams, beginning before the war. CPT is a program of Brethren, Quaker, and Mennonite churches. For more information see www.cpt.org.

Source: Newsline 8/06/2004
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